Happy Birthday to my long suffering husband 🎂. I hope you like the alpaca jumper I bought in Arequipa, Peru (and sent home to a locker where Rachel picked it up). It is an expensive present Bill, so please don’t wear it when you are eating 🤣 nor put it in the washing machine no matter what temperature 😱

I shall miss this isolated region in the desert, it has so much to offer and so many exciting adventures still to choose from. I had only scraped the surface and wanted to stay longer to explore every nook and cranny. And the hotel (Casa de Don Tomas) has been an enormous comfort to me, it’s the first time I have actually felt as though I belonged somewhere and looked forward to going ‘home’ at the end of a long day.

For the last 5 days I have been living in sumptuous unpretentious luxury and didn’t want for anything more, the staff were so friendly, professional and genuinely interested in my daily adventures. So yip, it was going I be sad to leave and go back out into the cold world where no-one knew my name nor really cared who I was.

I didn’t pack a sock last night, I was so exhausted but I knew my pick-up time wasn’t until 12:30 – 1pm and that would be plenty of time to complete the challenge or even decide if it was possible. It was complete bliss to sprawl out in my huge comfy bed, let Passenger serenade me with the entire lyrics of Beautiful birds and feel the warmth of the early morning sun coming streaming in through my little open window.

My breakfast was just as leisurely but it wasn’t long before nagging thoughts of my unpacked rucksack began creeping into my conscience and I started to get agitated.

This then was my chore once again and you’d think it would become more routine and easier as I’ve done it so many times but nope…..pack, squash, zip…..unzip, unpack……pack, squash, zip…….unzip, unpack…..squash, squash, squash……zip and because I keep buying bits and bobs, the no room at the inn rucksack was completely bulging to the point of exploding!! Bulge or no bulge the zip was zipped and the buckles buckled for the last time.

I’ve often have this complete fear of seeing my baggage on the carousel with it’s contents completely strewn to the wind!!!

Sitting here in the blistering sun and having a wee cup of tea, I’m trying to top up my tan as Patagonia, Chile, is going to be around 25oC colder 🥶 and my skin will shrivel for sure.

Rudolf the Red nose reindeer is playing through the speakers and I can’t really get my head round the fact that is going to be Christmas soon 🎄. Maybe once I get to the glaciers, snow and ice conditions of Patagonia it might become more appropriate.

The one and a half hour run to the airport was relaxing as it gave me the chance to have one last long look at those towering volcanoes and miles and miles of flat, arid, rocky terrain.

Goodbye San Pedro de Atacama, the pleasure was all mine 😘

What can you say about airport life? Everyone roams around aimlessly waiting for their flight to be called over the tannoy. All we really want is to get from A to B as painless and quickly as possible.

I wandered into one of those fast food places and ordered from a Spanish menu that I could only guess what was coming out from the kitchen and when it came…… 🤢…..the thought of eating one mouthful made me feel quite nauseous

I ate the meat ( which was more than I should have), drank a little tea and then left to find a flight information monitor to scan it for the umpteenth time hoping my flight was imminent.

Back home, the celebrations for Bills birthday was in full swing and I was invited to join them for a FaceTime session.

How much fun it was talk to them all and be part of my family again from thousands of miles away. It certainly made me laugh out loud and lift my spirits.

The flight from Calama to Santiago and the next from Santiago to Punta Arenas was the same old same old, an airport is an airport no matter where you are in the world.

I wasn’t due to land in Punta Arenas, Patagonia until 23:50 – it has been a long day of getting to where I wanted to be.

I only hope and pray that there is someone waiting for me in the chaotic scrum holding up a card with my name on it.

OMG, disaster!!! No-one was waiting at the airport and I was being harassed by this other strange man (Taxi driver) telling me he’d take me to the hotel. I waited and waited but my prebooked hotel taxi never came and I phoned 10 times but there was no answer. Then that pest of a man supposedly called the original taxi who said he wasn’t coming 😲. Anyway to cut a long story short, because this voice on the other end of the phone confirmed my name, I got in the pest of a mans’ taxi.

I put my satnav on right away and took photos of his I.D tag inside the car when he wasn’t looking. I wasn’t getting good vibs from this situation.

When we arrived at the hotel just before 1am, which had only one room and was nothing more than a shack at the side of the road, I was shown to my accommodation. There was no lock on my bedroom door and none of the bedside lamps worked. It reminded me a bit like The Bates motel.

It even had a wee old ladies sewing machine in the room – freaking me out!! No wonder I don’t watch horror movies, my imagination runs riot.

I have travelled around South American for 8 weeks now and this is the first time I can honestly say that I feel more than a little vulnerable!!

I’ve jammed my heavy rucksack against the door, closed the curtains, looked inside the wardrobes and checked all the windows were shut tight – I couldn’t bear to look under the bed, I’d just die if I saw a pair of eyes looking back at me 😱. It’s now 1:30am, I’m so tired but I definitely won’t sleep and I’m keeping the overhead light on – as well as all my clothes and shoes!!!

I don’t like this!!

Nite 😱